A Foodie’s Guide to the Best Music Venues in Metro Manila (A Series)

When I was in my 20s, I’d go to every Cynthia Alexander and Session Road gig I could find, in the constant company of my BFFs Badette, Doyts, Leda, Io and Cristie. We were then publishing a multicultural lifestyle magazine called Tribu. It was a time of intellectual and spiritual awakening for me. I loved being in the company of artists and thinkers. We would spend hours chatting at Inca, attend events at Big Sky Mind, street party on Nakpil or just hang out at Penguin Café in Malate. Those were the days.

I used to dress this way and teach mask-making in EarthLite at the former COD Building in Cubao

These days, I still go out to listen to bands, mostly with Judd, who is a big music lover. We have superb local musicians so the music is mostly good, but glutton that I am, I am often there for the food. Here’s my review of different music venues where the food is as good as the music.

Historia Bar & Restaurant
5 Sgt. Esguerra Ave, Diliman, Quezon City
(632) 376-6520

Before we discovered this place, we would drive all the way to Makati to listen to bands. Sometime in July, a friend’s despedida was held here and one of Judd’s favorite bands, MusiClimax, was onstage.

Side A

I decided to hold Judd’s birthday salubong here in August because Side A (minus Joey G. and Joey B.) was scheduled to play. We reserved the air-conditioned function room, which can accommodate up to 100 people. The bigger area where the stage is has no air-conditioning although it is well-ventilated. When the band started playing at 10 p.m., we opened the sliding door that linked the two sections and we were able to enjoy the music while staying cool.

While arranging for the salubong, I discovered that the person in charge of the kitchen was my friend Jaemark’s dad who used to own Joseph and Jaemark’s. Jae suggested which items to order. They were all seriously good but the one standout was the binusog na pechay, which is local bokchoy stuffed with ground pork and smoked fish. The coconut-based sauce was genius. This is one of the things I dream about while fully awake.

Nuvo Restaurant and Bar
Greenbelt 2, Greenbelt Drive, Makati City
Phone (632) 757-3699

Nuvo is our default choice when we want to listen to a band. The band plays at the open area from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. after which they move to the main dining hall for their last set. One of our favorite  bands these days is Crib.

The very talented musicians behind Crib Band

Peppered Chicken

The atmosphere is relaxed and the food is always good. The meatballs spaghetti is one of the best, according to meatballs addict Judd, while I always order the peppered chicken.

Meatballs Spaghetti

It’s always fun when someone orders the linguini dans la meule because Anthony Btesh, the chef, finishes the cooking tableside by flaming a half-wheel of cheese. When the cheese melts, he puts in the pasta. It leaves the room perfumed with truffle oil.

And because every meal should end on a sweet note, you must order their frozen brazo de Mercedes, which has a chewy, nutty dulce de leche bottom crust that I can't resist. 


Salon De Ning Lounge Bar
Ground Floor Manila Peninsula
Ayala Avenue, Makati City
Phone (632) 887-2888
7:00 pm - 2:00 am (Tuesday to Saturday)

I always give myself an outfit check before I decide to go to Salon de Ning. I don’t want to look shabby amid its well-polished Art Deco objects d’art.

The bar is impeccably furnished in sophisticated 1930s Shanghai style, with four semi-private sitting room alcoves. In terms of interiors, this venue is a cut above the rest.

Their bands are also consistently good. At one time, we dropped by with Binky after a cheese event and were surprised to see Juan Miguel Salvador performing! We didn’t know he was still active in the scene. He played all our New Wave favorites and we were simply ecstatic. His band is called The Authority.

I can't say much about the food because all I've tried is the cold cuts platter (which, to my bewilderment, was served with croissants). I usually either dine at the Manila Pen lobby (for the smoked salmon with capers and bagel) or order something from the lobby to be served at the bar. Or munch on the wasabi potato chips and mixed nuts, which are served with my drink. 

Strumm’s
110 Jupiter Street
Bel-air, Makati City

I didn’t know why we went to Strumm’s that night in May while Badette was in town and how we ended up watching Route 70 and The Authority. The stars must simply have aligned to take us to the music of our generation, albeit the ‘70s sound is a little early for me and Eyron.

I’m afraid I can’t write much about the food here because Badette and I came from dinner with my family. But if you’re an ‘80s baby like me, come on a Thursday and you’ll have a night to remember.

Sage Tapas Bar
Ground Floor Shangri-La Makati
Ayala Ave. cor. Makati Ave, Makati City

Phone (632) 813-8888

5 p.m. to 2 a.m. (Sunday to Thursday)
5 p.m. to 3 a.m. (Friday and Saturday)

The entrance from the lobby of Shangri-La Hotel Makati

The bar

Two words: Cubano sandwich. It was sweet, smoky, and cheesy, with the proper ratio of filling and bread. So good. So were the chicken lollipops.

Like Salon de Ning, they have a fantastic band lineup for those who are looking to unwind after work, even on a weekday. The bands are always obliging to guests. The best table is at a corner near the stage where you can sit comfortably in club chairs with a full view of the band.

St. Marc's Cafe's Chococro (Chocolate Croissant): The Perfect Partner to Your Morning Coffee

St. Marc Cafe's Chococro doesn’t look like much but it is a little serving of heaven. It has been haunting me since I first tried it upon the recommendation of Joanna.

I have been a big croissant lover since I had my first bite of the buttery, flaky French version at Hotel Meslay in 1993 as a college graduate on my first visit to Paris. I became an even bigger fan when my mom and I enrolled in a croissant-making class at Heny Sison. I realized that achieving those crisp edges while keeping the inner layers meltingly soft takes hours of kneading and a fine-tuned technique.

St. Marc’s Chococro looks rather unadorned except for the dusting of almond bits on top and the dark chocolate peeking out of its edges. This isn’t the dainty bite of an ideal croissant, but the wisps of warm puff pastry giving in to a burst of what tasted like Gianduja-laced chocolate will get you at first bite. It’s something I’d like to have with my coffee every morning and a worthy replacement to my favorite pain au chocolat.

My niece Julia has her own favorite in St. Marc—the Golden Nugget, soft-serve vanilla ice cream with cereals concealed at the bottom of the cone. I had a taste of the ice cream, which had a rich texture and fresh, milky flavor.

We have Ben Chan to thank for bringing St. Marc Café to the Philippines. It opened its first store in 1998 at Ginza Maronie Boulevard in Tokyo. It has since grown to over 300 outlets globally, spreading happiness through its freshly baked bread and pastries.

St. Marc's Cafe
Ground Floor SM Megamall Fashion Hall, Mandaluyong
Ground Floor UP Town Center, Quezon City
2nd Floor Greenbelt 3, Makati

The Wholesome Table: The Art of Eating Well

The only thing evil about what I ate at The Wholesome Table was the calories. To my surprise, this temple to cold-pressed juices, sprightly salads and all things organic and superfood-boosted was equally deft at fashioning comfort food classics from ingredients that were treated kindly.



This restaurant owned by husband-and-wife team Juan and Bianca Elizalde is an ode to the Philippines' agricultural bounty. They procure ingredients from local sources. They only use meat from grass-fed cows that were raised without artificial hormones and antibiotics. Their poultry products are free-range. They use seafood that are caught in the wild. They also abstain from using processed ingredients, except for their organic cheeses.



Truth be told, Judd and I weren’t lured to The Wholesome Table in Estancia Mall by the promise of eating wholesomely but by the prospect of eating well. The menu was promising. So were the plates being served to other diners. It didn’t hurt either that the setting recalled the experience of dining under a tree and among the stars, albeit in an indoor mall setting.



I enjoyed their take on tomato soup, which was thickened with vegetable broth. It was light and smooth, with chickpea croutons providing crunch and texture.



Because Judd’s love for meatballs is bordering on fanatical, he just had to have it. The serving was ample, with two big, flavorful and moist cubed portions bathed with bacon mushroom gravy, which was the embodiment of yum.



I ordered the fried chicken parmigiana. The chicken was baked with home-made organic tomato passato and Parmesan cheese. I thoroughly enjoyed this but the chicken was so good it might have been a better idea to request for plain old fried chicken with the tomato puree on the side.

My only regret about this meal was that there were only two of us and I ended up lusting after all the items I didn’t get to order. Had the entire foodie family (and friends) been with me, I would have convinced them to order the burrata, grass-fed meatballs, double mushroom melt, slow-braised pork, and salmon and basil cream pasta.

The Wholesome Table puts pleasure into eating virtuously. The service was efficient, helpful yet unfussy. It is easy to lose track of time amidst the evocative brick walls and distressed wood interiors. And the food is the deliciously nurturing sort, not only for diners but for the land.

Mama Lou's: Frills-Free, Full-Flavored Italian Home Cooking

We circled UP Town Center once and still couldn’t decide where to eat. Joanna and I were conferring with each other about options when she said, “Why not Mama Lou’s? It was named best restaurant (by Philippine Tatler).” We retraced our steps and had our group added to the waitlist, which had 10 names before ours.

Mama Lou’s is a fairly recent addition to UP Town Center’s (UPTC) interesting (and growing) roster of restaurants and cafes. It is owned by French-Canadian Richard Tremblay who converted their family home in BF Homes, Las Piñas into an Italian restaurant named after his late-wife Marilou or Mama Lou. It has since expanded with branches in Nuvali and UPTC.

We ordered poutine because the teenagers have been craving for it since our visit to Terrace45. It’s hard to go wrong with this dish, it appears, because the individual ingredients—French fries, gravy and cheese—could very well stand on their own but are even better together. Mama Lou’s version doesn’t stray too far from the original, with tasty brown gravy and mozzarella cheese of the ideal proportions. And because we believe that everything edible should come with bacon on top or on the side, we had ours with a helping of our favorite incarnation of pork.

Mama Lou's Special

Pizza Bianca

Their thin-crust, Neapolitan-style pizzas are served perfectly flat and without edges, the sort you can stuff with alfalfa and roll. We ordered the Mama Lou’s Special, with bubbling mozzarella, prosciutto, mango (!) bits and arugula, and a drizzling of thick balsamico; and pizza Bianca, with cream, mozzarella, bacon and mushroom. They won’t earn the nod of the pizza cognoscenti who are partial to a charred and puffed dough but they are perfectly good pizzas that offer good value for money.

But I’m really all about the standouts. I think there was wizardry at work in Mama Lou’s truffle mac and cheese. Al dente elbow macaroni pasta was tucked in a medley of cheeses—an “original blend of cheese and truffle cream”, the menu describes—and topped with a slight toasted layer of mozzarella and cheddar cheese. It was pure, creamy perfection.

It was easy to tell that Mama Lou’s knows how to do pasta right when we tasted the spaghetti seafood olio, its version of aglio e olio pasta. With just sautéed garlic, a variety of seafood (clams, mussels and shrimps) and olive oil, this simple dish managed to transport me to Positano, where I had my best aglio e olio pasta to date.

My foodie family at Mama Lou's

Mama Lou's Italian Kitchen
UP Town Center
Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City
Phone (632) 9585563

The Frazzled Cook: The Pancake à la Mode Takes the Cake

 The Frazzled Cook’s décor recalls a charming country cottage furnished with flea market finds. It is certainly a pleasure to dine in.

However, you’ll have to be selective about your food choices because they have a few ungainly dishes, including the paella negra, which had overdone rice and lacked the full flavor of squid ink, and the pork chop, which was a bit tough.

The sizzling squid was flavorful. The squid was cooked perfectly, and the vinaigrette and pickled mangoes provided an interesting flavor element.

The scampi pizza could satisfy a craving if you’re not looking for the smoky, wood-fired variety. It is akin to 3M Pizza, albeit more generous with its toppings of tomatoes, bell peppers and kesong puti.

The barbecued short ribs were good but still short of fantastic.

The best option for mains or pasta is the truffle pasta with Portobello mushrooms and white sauce, an almost no-fail combination, if I may say so.

The absolute standout was the pancake a la mode, which was once described by Chuvaness as the best pancake in the world.

I don’t know if I will bestow it such singular honor but I have to agree that the pancake was pretty darn special. It was crisp around the edges, more dense than fluffy, and buttery as all things evil should be. After sharing one, we ordered two more. And we’re coming back for more.

While the pancake a la mode is, hands-down, the best bet for dessert, their other desserts are also good, like the chocolate mousse that Julia ordered and the crepe cake I got to try with my dear friend Yamine during our long-overdue reunion a month ago. 

Our meal ended on an interesting note when I ordered Alamid coffee. The waiter asked me if I preferred mild or strong. I opted for the former.

I was surprised when a contraption that looked like it was smuggled out of a science lab arrived at our table. It turned out to be a siphon coffee maker, which is ideal for making a delicate cup. Click on the video above to see how my coffee was brewed using this coffee siphoning method.

Dinner with my dear Yamine. This was our first visit to The Frazzled Cook. 

Weekend lunch with my foodie family

The Frazzled Cook
78 Scout Gandia,
Brgy. Laging Handa, Quezon City
Phone (632) 374-6879